Most of my knives are PE, with 1-2 CE thrown in the bunch. I never owned a SE, but the story below gave me reason to get one, plus the blessing of the missus to do so!:thumbup:
My wife hollered at me from the kitchen, asking for help. Saw her trying to slice shrimps down the middle for grilling. Our kitchen knives have gotten dull (still waiting for my sharpmaker!) and she told me "I need a sharp knife." So I got my recently-purchased Endura4 CE (which was shaving sharp, btw), and started slicing thru the shrimp. Mind you the PE portion of the knife wouldn't bite into the hard shell of the shrimp, it just slides off. The SE, on the other hand, just bites and takes it thru. however, being a CE, the Endura wasn't much help cutting thru the shell (limited cutting surface on the SE).
I broke out our NIB Henckels chef's knife, which was uber-sharp but also slid off the shell without cutting. It took a lot of wrist pressure just to get the blade to bite.
I ended up using our steak knife (full serrations) to cut thru the shell, which it did very easily. For a clean cut, I used the steak knife to pierce the shell, then the chef's knife to cut the flesh cleanly.
So, just an observation, I mean, seeing so many posts here saying PE can cut anything just as easily as SE can, wait till you get a slippery hard shrimp shell that needs to be cut down the midline, then you may have to rethink this. PE blades do not do well on hard, slim, wet, slippery stuff (like shrimp!).
This made me want to get a full SE Spyderco blade (which my wife approved of seeing how my very sharp PE knives couldn't do the job!). Another reason to buy a knife!
My wife hollered at me from the kitchen, asking for help. Saw her trying to slice shrimps down the middle for grilling. Our kitchen knives have gotten dull (still waiting for my sharpmaker!) and she told me "I need a sharp knife." So I got my recently-purchased Endura4 CE (which was shaving sharp, btw), and started slicing thru the shrimp. Mind you the PE portion of the knife wouldn't bite into the hard shell of the shrimp, it just slides off. The SE, on the other hand, just bites and takes it thru. however, being a CE, the Endura wasn't much help cutting thru the shell (limited cutting surface on the SE).
I broke out our NIB Henckels chef's knife, which was uber-sharp but also slid off the shell without cutting. It took a lot of wrist pressure just to get the blade to bite.
I ended up using our steak knife (full serrations) to cut thru the shell, which it did very easily. For a clean cut, I used the steak knife to pierce the shell, then the chef's knife to cut the flesh cleanly.
So, just an observation, I mean, seeing so many posts here saying PE can cut anything just as easily as SE can, wait till you get a slippery hard shrimp shell that needs to be cut down the midline, then you may have to rethink this. PE blades do not do well on hard, slim, wet, slippery stuff (like shrimp!).
This made me want to get a full SE Spyderco blade (which my wife approved of seeing how my very sharp PE knives couldn't do the job!). Another reason to buy a knife!
